Shootouts that defy all logic

For the United States, this is the nightmare that never ends. The names of countless schools, churches and even entire cities have become synonymous with mass murder. Thousand Oaks now adds to the list of Las Vegas, Orlando, Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook and Parkland, where a 28-year old ex-Marine killed 12 youngsters before killing himself. No motive has been found so far.

The incident reminds of Stephen Paddock gunning down 58 persons in Las Vegas last year. This present shooting spree defies all logic because logic cannot be applied to the senseless. Yet, if someone is to go on a rampage, there should be some trigger. This one was his own community. He was a part of it. The killer is said to be always happy. His friends recall him a happy-go-lucky man. He was highly rated by his friends as a decent guy.

Ever since the killing of 20 small children at Sandy Hook - and the failure of the politicians to make even the tiniest tightening of the laws - it has been horribly clear America will not change. The politicians who get elected with funding from the NRA (National Rifle Association) can never work towards controlling the gun culture. It seems as though the Americans don't value life at all. They perhaps value their dead more. Flowers, memorial meetings and ‘hearts go out’ statements are fine with them.

Everyone questions the mental condition of the assaulter every time a shooting takes place. The questions that follow such attacks are: whether the killer's state of mind is OK? Whether he is facing any stress conditions? What provoked him? Is it pathological dislike towards something etc? But the American society fails to understand that if there is something wrong for these incidents to take place, it is more with the society itself.

A certain pathological disorder is afflicting the society. The society encourages guns and gun culture and loves its mourning and flowers and candles. That seems to be problem. Their President exhorts country's police and border guards to think of rifle if illegal immigrants throw stones on them. Those who see mental health as a problem fail to see firearms. It is not a too much of a stretch to see that it could be both. There is another issue here in America. For a shooting to become a mass shooting, at least four persons have to be killed by any armed person.

The recent shooting at a Yoga studio in Tallahassee last week left only three dead and hence it was not branded a mass shooting. Neither was a shooting at Maryland Rite Aid where three people were killed in September. So, the death toll keeps mounting but does not fall under mass shooting category. With their President Donald Trump being a trigger-happy man and a big fan of the gun lobby, there is nothing that the Americans could expect. Just as these psychopaths do not need a reason to kill, those governing them to do not need a reason to mourn. A psychopath enjoys killing. Others enjoy mourning, perhaps. That explains America.